In an era when advertising budgets are under greater scrutiny, marketers must be able to understand the effectiveness and performance of the ads they place.

A study by Accenture, commissioned by ABC, uncovered a number of compelling insights that can help marketers do just that.

Our focus was the impact of video advertising, given its prominent role in many advertising budgets. As part of our analysis, we concentrated on two key categories: Multiplatform TV, which encompasses television-type programming consumed in various ways; and digital which, for the purpose of this study, includes search, display and short-form video.

We analyzed our proprietary, robust Accenture database of $12 billion in anonymized marketing spend over a three-year period across more than 20 leading national brands representing six industry categories, and tracked the impact of this spend on key metrics, including sales and brand health.

Ongoing advancements in analytics tools have made possible sophisticated ways of gauging the return on ad investments

Four important insights emerged

Key Finding #1:
Multiplatform TV advertising has a significant halo effect on search, display, and short-form video advertising within integrated campaigns. On average, 18% of the Return on Investment (ROI) that’s typically attributed to these three channels actually should be credited to Multiplatform TV.

Key Finding #2:
While the average ROI from search, display, and short-form video is high at initial spend levels relative to Multiplatform TV, marginal returns for Digital diminish rapidly as spend increases. In fact, the inflection point happens sooner than what we initially expected.

Key Finding #3:
Multiplatform TV advertising has a measurable, long-term impact on driving incremental sales. The combined impact of Years 2 and 3 is equivalent to 1.3x the impact measured in Year 1.

Putting Ad Dollars to work

These findings suggest that by adopting a new holistic approach to performance attribution measurement, marketers could enhance their ad investment yield—in many cases, substantially. As part of this approach, marketers should:

Factor the Multiplatform TV halo effect into short-term media planning to optimize the ROI from search, display, and short-form video.

Use long-form digital video to increase ROI on video advertising investments and align with the changing nature of consumer video consumption.

Understand the cumulative three-year impact on total ROI when considering shifting Multiplatform TV spend to search, display, and short-form video.

Consider category market trends and characteristics, as well as specific sales and brand objectives, to determine the most effective allocation of ad spend across all marketing channels.

Marketers who approach attribution in this way, supported by more sophisticated analytics, can accurately understand each channel’s performance and the full impact that reallocating budgets can have on performance. Such knowledge can be instrumental in putting ad dollars to work where they can have the greatest impact on what ultimately matters: strengthening brand health and bringing more customers and revenue through the door.